Cool new camera

No, I’m not trying to make some witty pun, I just want to bring to your attention a camera that I think is pretty innovative. I’m talking about the MV-D1024E-160 (now there’s a snappy name) from Photonfocus (www.photonfocus.com). Here’s what I think is neat about it: First, it has a very high dynamic range sensor, which gives you the ability to look at scenes with very high dynamic range. Second, being a CMOS sensor, you can window it down from its full 1024 square resolution, and so increase the frame rate. At 640 x 480 I had it running at 400fps, so it’s a high speed camera too.

There are however a couple of downsides to all this deliciousness. The software supplied with the camera doesn’t have a viewer. In other words you can’t see what the camera sees without using your framegrabber software. And secondly, to get the 400fps I mentioned above you need a grabber with a fast pixel clock. If you’re using NI hardware, the 1428 card ain’t gonna cut it, you’ll need the 1429.

But all in all, I think these drawbacks are pretty insignificant for a camera that opens up some interesting possibilities.